As Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi demonstrated with "Maus" and "Persepolis," the graphic memoir can be a remarkably potent medium for telling personal stories set against political upheavals. Belle Yang of Carmel takes up the form to great effect in "Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale" (W.W. Norton; 250 pages; $23.95), an epic yet intimate account of her family's hardships in 20th century China. In wonderfully dreamy - and often nightmarish - black-and-white images rendered in pen and ink, Yang dips in and out of her ancestors' past, her kindly father narrating the story. The ravages of famine and the brutality of the Cultural Revolution's unthinking minions are hauntingly depicted, as is the specter of Yang's abusive ex-boyfriend, but the reader also beholds selfless acts of compassion. It is these moments, along with Yang's tender portrayal of a natural world at peace - flowers in bloom, butterflies aflutter - that lend her story its ultimate, life-affirming grace.

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